‘A Nation of Suckers’ (2016)

When I wrote this a few years ago, I had not yet observed that the Pew Poll is all over the map when it comes to religious issues. So of course it sounded really bad: “49% of people who have left the church no longer believe in God or miracles.”

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About leeduigon

I have lived in Metuchen, NJ, all my life. I have been married to my wife Patricia since 1977. I am a former newspaper editor and reporter. I was also the owner-operator of my own small business for several years. I wrote various novels and short stories published during 1980s and 1990s. I am a long-time student of judo and Japanese swordsmanship (kenjutsu). I also play chess, basketball, and military and sports simulations.
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It’s a strange poll to begin with, and the article further obscures what the report is about. Supposedly, the Pew survey was of “nones,” meaning people who don’t identify with a specific religion or who never had one. It doesn’t mean “people who have left their church.” Second, we don’t get to hear what percentage these “nones” are of the general public, so the headline “Pew: Americans give up on God, miracles” makes it appear that the survey was of all Americans, not just this small subset. Third, we don’t know how the sample was selected, or how extensive the “nones” category was supposed to be — e.g., did it include Christians who simply didn’t want to identify with a specific denomination? did it include Buddhists and Hindus who obviously don’t identify with Christian categories at all? — or how the questions were framed, so we can’t tell how accurate the survey was even before the article distorted it. So we have a probably slanted survey reported in a slanted manner, and we’re supposed to gasp and clutch our pearls about how irreligious Americans have become. Or maybe we’re supposed to stop believing in God ourselves in order to be cool and go along with the trend. I say pfui.